Hermit Diary, Montreal. 6. Tranströmer plays Haydn.

Yesterday Teju Cole asked his Facebook followers a simple question: "What's helping?" As you can imagine, the comments included a wide range of answers: everything from "the stillness" to "connecting with others." In addition to "talking to friends", a lot of people (including me) mentioned reading and music. I've been playing my piano much more lately, and I'm going to miss it badly because we are seldom going to our studio, where it lives. The cathedral, where I've been involved in music for more than a decade, is closed, and there will be no choral services for a long time. I'll have to sing to myself, or get out my flute, because there's a music quotient in my life that can only be satisfied by making music, not just by listening.

So here is a poem by Tomas Tranströmer, the late Swedish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011, who also played the piano. After suffering a stroke in 1990, his right side was paralyzed, and he taught himself to play with just his left hand. He is quoted as saying that playing was a way for him to continue living after the stroke -- though he did go on to write poetry until the early 2000s, publishing his final book, The Great Enigma, in 2004. He died in 2015, just weeks before his 84th birthday.

Allegro

I play Haydn on a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively, and calm.

The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag--it signifies:
"We don't give in. But want peace."

The music is a glasshouse on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.

--Tomas Transtromer

 

Comments

[Natalie]

Wonderful. Thank you Beth.

[Rachel Barenblat]

Beautiful. Thank you, Beth.

[Dave Bonta]

As it happens, I cracked out Transtromer's collected poems four days ago and have been reading him every morning while I drink my coffee.

[am]

Thank you for this poem today, Beth.

[Roderick Robinson]

I suppose this is the post I've been waiting for you to write (not that I haven't read and enjoyed the others). After my last singing lesson, just over a fortnight ago, I parted from V in the usual way: yes it had been a rewarding but very tough session (a Clara Schumann song) and yes I would rehearse - specifically - this and that. Only a few days were to elapse before I realised - to my horror and sorrow - it would be irresponsible to continue with lessons even though V is continuing to hold them. I emailed her and she was grace itself.

But, however temporary, it couldn't end like that. I am pursuing Skype, have ordered a webcam and kept V au courant. Yesterday she emailed me and said she'd conducted a recorder lesson via Skype and it had been a great success. Waiting impatiently for the webcam I have occupied myself by singing over a track of Du bist die Ruh by the baritone, Christian Gerhaher, and recording the combined result. Which I will email to V for her assessment.

And, yes, you have put your finger on it exactly: "there's a music quotient in my life that can only be satisfied by making music, not just by listening".

I could have written verse about my musical situation, as Transtromer did, but unfortunately there's verse on another rather demanding subject - the onset of death - that is occupying my frontal lobes and needs to be dealt with first in these troublous times. Not knowingly predictive as far as I know.

Am I being trivial in suggesting that Transtromer's choice of composer - Haydn - makes all the difference? That it was the decision of someone who truly loves music and didn't have to prove the point by citing one of the grander names. Not that Haydn is in any sense the lesser composer, just that some people may not even know he wrote piano music And I, memory stirred, have a delicious if very ancient recording of Backhaus doing Sonatas 52 and 48 which I must now listen to. All those sonatas!

[Beth]

Thanks, all.

Robbie, I’m glad you are figuring out ways to keep singing and keep up your communication with V., which has been so important to you and (I suspect) to her. I’m going to haul out my flute soon. I once played well, but now play badly, so it’s frustrating, but at least it’s music-making.